The Massry Center for the Arts

Welcome to the Massry Center for the Arts, a new showcase for music and the visual arts at The College of Saint Rose
More than an academic facility, the Massry Center is a cultural focal point in the Capital Region, reinforcing once again the College's mission as an engaged urban campus. Featuring the Kathleen McManus Picotte Recital Hall, the Esther Massry Gallery, and the William Randolph Hearst Music Wing, the Massry Center for the Arts will serve as the primary venue for concerts and exhibitions by the College’s students and faculty each year, and a performance and exhibition space for talented artists, musicians, vocalists and orchestras from around the world.

Within the Massry Center’s 46,000 square feet of wireless and smart classrooms, practice and performance space, the College’'s music students will experience the finest sound quality as they rehearse and perform a wide variety of orchestral and choral works. Students in our nationally-accredited art program, housed at the Picotte Hall Center for Art and Design in downtown Albany, will gain new learning opportunities at the Massry Center while students from all disciplines are exposed to the visual arts.

Named for the Massry family of Loudonville, N.Y., this building represents the family’s commitment to The College of Saint Rose and the cultural life of Albany and the region. On December 9, 2005, the College announced the family’s gift of $2 million. This gift, the largest ever by this Philanthropic family, is a permanent statement of the importance of the arts in the mission and life of Saint Rose.

The Massry Center, designed by Saratoga Associates of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and built by Sano-Rubin Construction of Albany, N.Y., is itself a work of art. Please use this guide to acquaint yourself with the many distinctive features throughout its four floors.

Exterior
Respecting the streetscape and the design of our historic campus, the Massry Center mirrors the Victorian administration building next to it in its dimensions and roof pattern. The Center sweeps back nearly four times its front width, just over 200 feet, providing a dramatic
expansive facility. The use of glass interspersed with brick lends lightness to the Center. The side entrance is enhanced by a plaza which, with landscaping, creates a welcoming seating and gathering area.

First Floor
Picotte Recital Hall, art gallery, art history classroom

A centerpiece of the building, the 400-seat Picotte Recital Hall, maximizes acoustical quality for performers and the audience alike. Visual flourishes, including scalloped panels along the walls and ceiling, play a crucial role in delivering superior sound.

At the center of the first floor, the College''s art history classroom is equipped with a touch-screen, digital light projector that beams high-quality digital images onto a wall painted with “Screen Goo,’’ an acrylic paint providing far crisper images than conventional screens. The room will become a springboard for the College to offer more art history classes, particularly in non-Western art.

The Picotte Recital Hall:
The panels on the walls and ceiling are designed by Peter D'Antonio, a physicist and world leader in acoustical design with more than 60 patents. These panels are seen in concert halls worldwide, but have rarely before been installed in educational institutions.

A pattern of holes on the recital seat bottoms are filled with an acoustical material that absorbs sound, ensuring the same quality and volume whether there are four or 400 people in the hall.

Acoustical properties of the recital hall doors: each door is five inches thick and weighs 380 pounds

A Steinway concert grand piano adorns the stage, thanks to a generous anonymous donor.

Esther Massry Gallery

Esther Massry Gallery Features
At the Madison Avenue end of the first floor, the 2,200 square-foot art gallery provides flexible and open exhibition space. By assisting with exhibits, art students will have a special opportunity to learn gallery management.

Floor-to-ceiling windows supply natural light and can be covered with custom room-darkening shades to allow for light shows and multi-media installations.

Rigging apparatus near the window makes it possible to hang art weighing up to 3,000 pounds.

Movable halogen track lighting with lenses adjust intensity and color of the beam. The system is manufactured by Lighting Services Inc., of Stony Point, N.Y., a leader in
museum lighting with installations at the American Museum of Natural History and Yale University Art Gallery.

Walls outside the gallery are backed with three-quarter-inch plywood, allowing art to be exhibited throughout the Massry Center.

Second Floor
The music education classroom is known as an Orff classroom, named for the composer Carl Orff, an innovator in teaching music to children. The room houses a collection of Orff instruments used to teach the youngest learners.

The KeyBank Music Education Suite includes three teaching studios/ensemble practice rooms, the music education classroom and the music curriculum library.

Third Floor
1,800 square-foot choral rehearsal room and 2,500 square-foot instrument rehearsal room

The instrument rehearsal and choral rehearsal rooms in the William Randolph Hearst Music Wing are uniquely constructed of the same wood floor, ceiling and wall paneling as the Picotte Recital Hall, resulting in exactly the same sound quality in the rehearsal rooms as the Recital Hall. This eliminates the great variation in sound quality between practice and performance that is often daunting to singers and musicians.

Third Floor Student Lounge Instrument Rehearsal Room

Lower Level
21 practice rooms, two classrooms, two percussion studios, instrument storage lockers, the artists’ Green Room and geothermal pump room.

Sound-proof practice rooms are fitted with acoustical blocks and an angled wall that give them superior sound quality, unlike conventional practice rooms, which are laden with thick walls and carpet that seal in sound but diminish sound quality.

Acoustical Blocks and Angled Wall
of the Individual Practice Rooms